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I went to Clifton, NJ for a BBQ and finally caught up with the all the episodes of Mad Men. So...how was your weekend?

Cake Wrecks features this mess of an anti-sexual harassment cake (or a bad joke?). I don't really have anything to say about it - it was just too bizarre not to post.

Thanks to Mo in Germany for the link!

Reading a book on anti-feminists! on 12seconds.tv

So I just signed up for this video Twitter-like thing called 12 seconds (because my actual Twitter wasn't taking up enough of my time, it seems.) If you want to follow my oh-so-interesting 12 second musings on feminism, click here.

It's not only a band, but a ban of bikinis (Heh, I liked playing on words) at public pools in a small city outside of Salt Lake City, Utah.

I love how the mayor tries to talk about "individual freedoms" like it's something that he respects. Oh, but except when we don't like your freedom.

Just a quick note to any Rutgers students out there who happen to be readers of the blog. I'm teaching a class this fall for the Women's and Gender Studies program: Gender and Popular Culture. I'm really excited to re-connect with my academic roots, and to get to hang with some of the smartest students around (yeah, I'm not exactly objective having gotten my MA at Rutgers, but whatevs). So if you go to Rutgers and want to talk feminism and pop culture, sign up for the class...see you the fall!

Clem in Australia passes this one along: "Hi ladies, thought you might like this little bit of feminist graffiti 'editing' I spotted in Carlton, Melbourne."

Nice.

Maria from Atlanta sent us this super cool picture. Love it. Make sure to email us with any random acts of feminism that you spot (or do!).

Stolen shamelessly from a friend's Facebook profile. (Thanks, Priscilla!)

I've argued that the feminist movement doesn't need icons, and it's always problematic to start naming feminists as more "important" and worthy of iconic status than others. But hey, it's Friday - and it seemed like it would be a fun poll topic. If your feminist icon of choice isn't in the poll, feel free to name drop in comments...

Note: These are names I thought up of off the top of my head, so pretty please spare me any "I can't believe you didn't include so and so" comments. I don't consider this a complete list in the slightest - I was hoping you lovely feministas could help me fill it in. :)

By famous British art critic Brian Sewell:

"The art market is not sexist. . . The likes of Bridget Riley and Louise Bourgeois are of the second and third rank. There has never been a first-rank woman artist.

Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness. Women make up 50 per cent or more of classes at art school. Yet they fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children." (Emphasis mine)

Um yeah. I guess we can't surprised, since he's compared women's apparent incapacity to drive well with their artistry in the past.

I'd like to see him try to paint a fucking picture next to some great women artists of our time, like Frida Kahlo or Mary Cassatt. Anyone have favorite greats they'd like to share?

Thanks to Lynne for the link!

Yet another reason I'm proud to be a New Yorker.

Of the top five women executives in New York State, their businesses consist not of fashion or a perfume line, but of cars, computers, electronics, construction and envelopes.

Hotness.

h/t to MAC.

Feministing friend and liberal blogger Brian Beutler was shot and seriously injured late Tuesday night in an attempted mugging. Despite being shot three times and losing a spleen, Brian is doing well and cracking jokes already. Which doesn't shock us at all.

Our thoughts are with him, and his badass sense of humor, as he recovers.

On Dennis Miller's radio show Wednesday, McCain's former top strategist Mike Murphy talks about current chief strategist Charlie Black's recent slip that another terrorist attack would be "a big advantage" for their campaign. And what better way to lighten the conversation by joking about tits:

Transcript:

MILLER: Charlie Black, the aide decamp for McCain who gacks it here, does he have to go, do you think?

MURPHY: Well, he’s an old friend of mine, so I’ll defend him. I don’t know what happened. I think there must have been tremendous reporter cleavage involved or something.

MILLER: hahahahahahaha

MURPHY: Charlie got off his focus, he’s a good guy, he’s apologized for it... (Emphasis mine)

Via Think Progress.

h/t to Jake.

Just wanted to say a happy (belated) daddy's day to all those great fathers out there! My father is a huge feminist and was definitely a tremendous influence in my politics - so thanks, Dad!

Also, as you can see from the pic below (my Dad is on the far left) - there were other things I inherited from him as well.

(And for anyone who's interested, the babe in the middle with the long hair is my mom.)

Feel free to share Dad stories in comments!

Since our posts are usually about the sad state of women's rights in the world, I thought it would be nice to end today with something that's always fun: self-humiliation. So the question is, dear readers, what is the first concert you ever went to? And no, I don't mean some cool jazz thing that your parents dragged you to when you were a kid - I mean what musician(s) did you desperately try to scrounge up tickets for, and then go freaking out with the hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd see you from stage. (Okay, maybe that's just me from my NKOTB phase. I was in love with Joey, so sue me.)

My source of shame is below.

I got my older cousin to take me, and I totally wore that stupid Debbie Gibson hat.

And for those that aren't embarrassed by their first concert...I hate you.

Some women I've met talk about coming feminism via a "click" moment. Personally, I think I was always a feminist - but I didn't call myself one until after I took a Women's Studies class in college. So my "click" was more of a process...but an awesome one!

So, dear readers, vote and tell us in comments how you came to be a feminist. (And of course I realize a poll is a fairly limited way to gauge this sort of thing, but hey, it's fun.)

I really just wanted to direct you to one of my favorite parts of Margaret Cho's Revolution, which is about 4:43 in. Hilarious yet terrifying. By the way, this is not safe for work.

Finding out that my boyfriend's g-chat status message inspired a Feministe post. Nice going, dear!

Since Jess gives you the full Monty, I thought I'd bless (bore?) you with a couple little pics of one Ms. Kima Greggs. (Yes, she's named after the badass police officer on The Wire). She likes to use my cellphone as a pillow while she reads feministing.

And sometimes she helps me with secretarial duties. I pay her in by graciously scooping her shit. Look, all roommates have agreements. This just happens to be ours.

Hey folks, just a note to say that posting may be slow today. I have a flu/cold that's kicking my ass, despite all the Sudafed I'm forcing myself to take. (Any tips for getting better sooner would be much appreciated. I'm a garlic-clove-eating person myself, but it's not working.)

In the meantime, enjoy the picture above - a little something I like to call "shoe graveyard." It's what Andrew and I came home to on Monday night after a long dinner. Monty has never been much of a shoe-eating dog, but it seems he got it all out of his system at once. I had to say goodbye to some of my favorite shoes, but the cute-guilty look on Monty's face was almost worth it. Almost.

Back in the day, colors were stereotyped the actual opposite of our current pink/girl and blue/boy bullshit:

In Western culture, the practice of assigning pink to an individual gender began in the 1920s. From then until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate for boys because it was the more masculine and decided color while blue was considered appropriate for girls because it was the more delicate and dainty color. Since the 1940s, the societal norm apparently inverted so that pink became appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys, a practice that has continued into the 21st century. (Emphasis mine)

Too bad that before the switcheroo, the colors were just as stereotypical as the current gendering of blue/pink. And it still sort of shocks me that this still exists; I went to a friend’s baby shower the other day and literally 95% of the gifts were blue. You can guess what the gender is anticipated to be.

Thanks to Lydia for the link.

When I wake up with this song inexplicably stuck in my head, he doesn't know what I'm talking (or singing) about. For shame.

Retro video after the jump.

This one is a keeper.

Thanks to Becca for the link.

So my poor laptop is in the shop, and I'm freaking out because it looks like I won't have it for the rest of the week (and will be stuck using my boyfriend's computer, which hates me). But I had the most hilarious moment on the phone with a woman at the AppleCare call center of the store that's fixing my Mac. Turns out, she reads Feministing and told me that the folks over there all read our blog and Pandagon. Nice!

So, a big shout out to Daisy and all the other folks at AppleCare who read Feministing. And I swear I'm not doing this in the hopes my computer will be ready faster. Seriously.

I’m a pretty big fan of Seth Godin. He’s not only really smart about marketing; he’s also a fantastic writer. And it seems to me, an all around good guy. So, I was rather disturbed to see this:

Why do people struggling for an income end up using an expensive check cashing service when the bank right next door will let them have a checking account for free?

The answer?

Just about everyone has noise inside their head. It's a noise that keeps them from being rational, that forces them to avoid the simple truths sometimes, that makes them unable to take a shortcut when a long (more emotional one) is available.

Uh, no, Seth. Maybe you’ve never known anyone in a really tough financial situation, but checking accounts are not handed out for free to anyone who wants one. I don’t know about this from personal experience, thank goodness. But as soon as I read this it struck me as wrong. Five seconds of Googling will show you some of the reasons why people can’t get checking accounts. Bad credit, problems with a previous account and mistaken records can all result in being kicked out of the checking account eligibility club. People spend money they can’t afford to spare because their emotional intelligence is lacking? Stinks like privilege to me. Just because you don’t understand the reason for some behavior doesn’t mean there isn’t a perfectly rational reason for it.

Seth’s blog is all about marketing, and it seems to me that taking a little time to think about people and their decision-making might be useful in that field.

And you thought Happy Furry People was good.

This is just hilarious. The fact that the G-spot has been "proven" to exist by a study with just 20 women is classic:

The mysterious G spot - supposedly a route to female sexual satisfaction - can be located with ultrasound, claim Italian scientists. (Emphasis mine)

You know, because of course women's own personal experiences don't prove diddly squat. On a serious note, check out Betty Dodson's take on the G-spot for some more insightful literature.

Thanks to Fatima for the heads up.

And in "goody," I mean ridiculously offensive. In the midst of a trade discussion in 1973 with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chinese leader Mao Zedong offered sending Chinese women to the United States as as a trade, saying:

"We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands. . . We have too many women. ... They give birth to children and our children are too many."

And the kicker: "It is such a novel proposition," Kissinger replied. "We will have to study it."

Nothing like some vintage sexism to get the blood boiling.

Thanks to Pamela for the link.

The Montana Kaimin had a piece last week on Jessica's presentation at a Students for Choice event at the University of Montana earlier this week, but apparently their weekly rating system given on Fridays had Jessica's "rating" retracted shortly after it was published:

The Full Frontal Feminist, Jessica Valenti, gave a speech on the UM campus Wednesday night, and unfortunately gets Backhands. BU&Bh was quite excited for this presentation, until we realized there was no actual full frontal. And yes, we recognize the irony of Backhanding feminists. (Emphasis mine)

While we give props to them for cutting it out, but the fact that they published it in the first place is beyond me.

A big thanks to Jamee for speaking out on this.

So apparently Australian researchers have found more evidence showing that women can be more forgetful during pregnancy. What I want to know is where the hell "baby brain" came from and are you as perturbed by the term as I am?

Just saw this on a couple of email lists and, well, wow.

Esquire is asking the women of America to take part in something huge. How huge? It just might be the largest survey of American women in the history of survey. Our goal is to interview 10,000 women – you read that correctly: 10,000 – and we only have one question: What is something that men don’t know about women?

Building on our popular monthly feature 10 Things You Don’t Know About Women (examples below, or by clicking this link ), we want to educate the American man about women in a way no one ever has: By directly asking 10,000 of them.

Finally, Esquire's readers can understand those wacky creatures called women. By hearing random thoughts from them.

Does it drive anyone else nuts when they see commercials for MaxiPads and they use that goddamn blue liquid as a stand-in for menstrual blood? (I'm talking to you, Always!) I mean, who even thought of that?

Hey folks, I'm in Minneapolis gearing up for the Minnesota Choice Coalition's event commemorating Roe. I'll also be at the University of Minnesota tomorrow, speaking about my book and the blog. In the meantime, I've written kind of a fun article for Babble about Monty. Hope you like it. PS: Minnesota is cold.

I don't know what disturbs me more: That Paris Hilton is being named Harvard's Woman of the Year, or finding out that we have the same taste in clothes.

UPDATE: Thankfully, this award isn't as shmancy as it sounds.

This week was no joke. Between misogyny in the media, "gray" rape and and election madness, I think we all could use some cuteness to take the edge off.

Have a great weekend, folks.

UPDATE: Here's another video since the first was taken down. But be warned, maybe don't listen to the newscast. Sad news about the other cub...

This one has got to be on our next Disturbing Product Poll, despite the fact that it's a little more, um, complicated than your typical sexist toy. Move over Real Dolls, "re-born" babies are becoming a trend in the US and UK. And it absolutely terrifies me.

Thanks to MAC for this disturbing shit. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy a stroller for my new fake baby.

The super fabulous Jill Filipovic is the new editor of Alternet's recently-launched Reproductive Justice and Gender section.

I can't think of a smarter gal for the job.

Just so you know, I don't kiss on the mouth.

I've been trying to stay away from these random studies that the media loves to use as a means of promoting bullshit sexist theories, but this is too ridiculous to not point out:

Selling sex is said to be humankind's oldest profession but it may have deep evolutionary roots, according to a study into our primate cousins which found that male macaques pay for intercourse by using grooming as a currency.

According to the research, female macaques are more likely to want to have sex immediately after getting groomed. This, according to the researchers, is a method of payment, although the females don't necessarily even have sex with the macaque who grooms them. So are those just "freebies"? What about the possibility that the females might actually get aroused by being groomed? (I sure as hell do.) The article continues:

The work supports the theory that biological market forces can explain social behaviour, the British weekly says.

'There is a very well-known mix of economic and mating markets in the human species itself,' said Ronald Noe of France's University of Strasbourg.

'There are many examples of rich old men getting young attractive ladies.'

You would think this could be in The Onion. For real.

I'm super pleased to be the inaugural guest blogger at The Nation's Passing Through - a new blog that will feature a different guest writer every month. So go check me out (and some of the funny anti-feminist commenters!)

Hey folks, hope everyone had a great New Years Eve! Me and the boy went to our favorite wine bar in Brooklyn and brought the New Year in drunk on good wine and stuffed with amazing food.

Random question of the day: What won't you miss about 2007?

Dahlia Lithwick has the Bush administration's 10 dumbest legal arguments of the year.

ColorLines conducted a national investigation of fatal police shootings in America’s 10 largest cities. The findings will probably not surprise you.

Rebecca Traister recounts the year in sex.

Sudy delves into the not-always-pleasant world of feminist blog comments.

The New York Times Magazine's latest is the "The Lives They Lived" issue. If anything, read it for the piece on blogger Steve Gilliard who passed away this year.

And Hoyden About Town is collecting nominations for the best feminist blog posts of the year...go put your two cents in before tomorrow's deadline.

As 2007 comes to an end, how poetic that our very own president would give the Sexist Quote of the Year. In People magazine's end-of-the-year review with George Bush, he is asked:

Q: Tell us about your future son-in-law, Henry Hager. Did he do right and ask for Jenna’s hand?

The President: “He kind of sidled up to me and said, ‘Can I come and see you?’ We were sitting outside the presidential cabin here, and he professed his love for Jenna and said, would I mind if he married her? And I said, ‘Got a deal.’ [Laughter] And I’m of the school, once you make the sale, move on. But he had some other points he wanted [to make]. He wanted to talk about how he would be financially responsible.�

How lovely. Nothing like your traditional daughter-for-sale language from the leader of our great nation to get me all warm and fuzzy this holiday season. And shame on the magazine (not like we should expect much from them) to say that "asking for a daughter's hand" is the "right" thing to do. This isn't the fucking '50s, People.

Thanks to reader Jennifer for the heads up.

You have got to be kidding me.

This is right up there with PETA's oh-so-tasteful ads.

Via Nerve.

For reminding you that people like this exist.

H/t Amanda.

The holidays are upon us, and even if you're not celebrating anything at all--it's fun to give gifts, especially when they're super cool feminist ones! Here are some ideas we've put together; feel free to leave your own in comments.

For the ironic feminist

Sticks and Stones Clothing has shirts that make light of your typical anti-feminist insults--and reclaims them!

Speaking of reclaiming feminist stereotypes, what better way than to wear a bra-burning shirt?

And, of course, nothing says subversive like a our very own bird-flipping mudflap girl, available on shirts totes and mugs.

For the charitable feminist

There are a ton of organizations that you can donate in a friend's name to; just a few of our favorites...

The Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls , where you can rock out, donate and buy shirts.

Girls Write Now, which pairs up at-risk high school girls with professional writers to develop a mentor relationship for a school year.

Pretty Bird Woman House, a woman's shelter on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota needs to raise money in order to stay open: show them some holiday cheer!

If you want to give internationally, check out MADRE, which supports community-based women's organizations worldwide and advocates for women's rights as human rights.

For the horny feminist

Toys in Babeland always has a great selection of naughty holiday fun, including this schmancy spherical vibrator which both baffles and intrigues me.

On Our Backs is a fun read for the girl who likes girls, buy a subscription for someone you love (or lust)!

And don't forget Feministing friend Rachel Kramer Bussel, who has a bevy of erotic books, from Crossdressing: Erotic Stories to Sex and Candy.

For the smarty-pants feminist

Not that buying vibrators and shirts aren't smarty-pants, of course. But if you're looking for some cool books, why not start by seeing what other Feministing readers like.

Or, if you're more into the pictures, pick up Mikhaela Reid's new cartoon collection. I have a copy and it's bad-ass.

Oh, and here's a list of my fave feminist books (just a few, I'll be adding more tonight!).

And, naturally, don't forget to support feminist magazines! Buy gift subscriptions to BUST, Bitch, make/shift, or ColorLines.

For all feminists

Okay, these are just things that I happen to think are cool--but I bet you will too!

Wanda Sykes' DVD, Sick and Tired. Just...hilarious.

The Douche Card. Because when you're a feminist, you know you'd like to hand these out daily.

Feminist Chicks Dig Me shirt. I've given one to a boyfriend and one to Colbert. I think Colbert appreciated it more.

Happy holidays, all!

As Feministing gets over our food hangovers and prepares to start post regularly again, consider this a open thread--tell us about your holiday, shamelessly self promote your blog or website, or just say hi...

This is one of those crappy web-only gender/"lifestyle" features (with equally idiotic art) that are insulting to both men and women:

Guys: Give thanks for women!

...but not real women, of course. So tomorrow, remember to give thanks for this caricature of femininity! (And masculinity, for that matter.) And then dig into that sexy turkey.

Sued for sexual harassment?!

Here's a weird ass story.

Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

I'm all against sexist speech...but ho ho ho? Crazy ass people.

Slate asks, Do coffee shops discriminate against women?

Who would have ever possibly thought this headline would come from our feminist-hating darlings, Men's News Daily:

"Feminist Ann Friedman Has a Point"

And that's not sarcasm talking, either. Hilarious!

Who knew that Australia's toy of the year would contain gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB), a drug commonly used to sedate rape victims. Crazy.

Since a number of children were recently hospitalized after eating beads from Aqua Dots, or Bindeez as they're called in Australia, their products are now frantically being pulled off of all store shelves internationally. The chemical can cause seizures, a coma and even death, if enough is ingested.

I've admittedly seen others take GHB for "recreational" purposes back in the day and to be frank, that shit was terrifying. The fact that it was being sold not only in a toy product, but in beads out of all things (probably the most ingested inedible material out there), is pretty unbelievable.

Via columnist Lucy Kellaway in a piece on office politics:

"More women in the workplace means more problems and there is the whole political correctness thing."

Classic.